[Image: Wedding Affair]
What a great time to be Jeff Bezos. You own James Bond. You shoot pop stars into space inside a phallic vanity project, and thanks to the recent drama with Elon Musk, you are currently the richest man in the world who hasn’t pissed of Trump. Best of all, you’re getting married!
In a little under two weeks, Bezos will marry Lauren Sánchez in a ceremony that will be slightly different from his first. The last time he tied the knot, it was one year before he founded Amazon in the garage of his rented Seattle home.
This time around, Bezos is rumoured to be dropping a cool $10 million on the June 24 to 26 wedding in Venice.
Since the Amazon founder and former television journalist got engaged in May 2023, speculation about when, where, and who would be at their nuptials has dominated the tabloid front pages and cocktail conversation from New York to Paris. Especially after Sánchez threw a rumoured $625,000 bachelorette party in Las Vegas attended by Katy Perry, Kim Kardashian, and several other Botox-infused celebrities and friends.
Vogue quotes a spokesperson for the mayor of Venice as saying recently that, “Only 200 guests will have been invited and therefore it will be easy for Venice to accommodate such an event, without any disruption whatsoever to the city, its residents and visitors.”
Most of the recipients of those 200 invites are still unknown, but the list is likely to include astro-girl Katy Perry, Kim Kardashian, Kris Jenner, and Eva Longoria, all of whom are close friends of Sánchez. The likes of Leonardo DiCaprio, Bill Gates, Oprah Winfrey, Mick Jagger, Ivanka Trump and Queen Rania of Jordan are also likely to attend the event.
The rest of the attendees are also likely to be people who can afford their own bunkers for when the poor rise up, so expect plenty of paparazzi to swim into Venice in the next two weeks.
The wedding will take place over three days, and according to people close to the couple, they are sourcing some 80% of their wedding provisions from Venetian vendors, as a way to share their appreciation for the romantic lagoon city.
Unsurprisingly, in a city whose future is fiercely debated at every turn, the wedding has attracted the attention of protesters, who on Thursday hung a banner on St Mark’s bell tower with Bezos’ name crossed out.
They cite the risk of disruptions in a city so overrun with mass tourism that officials are, for a second year, requiring that day trippers pay a tax to enter on key summer days.
City officials have promised that services will function normally during the wedding, and issued a denial to reports that the wedding organisers had booked half the city’s water taxis and blocked out rooms at luxury hotels.
“We are very proud,’’ Luigi Brugnaro, mayor of Venice, told the Associated Press this week in St Mark’s Square, saying he hoped he would get the chance to meet Bezos.
“I don’t know if I will have time, or if he will, to meet and shake hands, but it’s an honour that they chose Venice. Venice once again reveals itself to be a global stage.’’
Sounds like this is going to be a wedding to rival that of Harry and the actress. The only issue we can think of is what to gift the happy couple for their big day. What do you get the wealthiest couple on the planet? A toaster, a Nutribullet? Lesotho?
[Sources: Vogue & Associated Press]
